The impact of comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography on oil & gas analysis: Recent advances and applications in petroleum industry

Comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography (GC × GC) has impacted the workflow of GC-based methods used in petroleum industry. Application of GC × GC to petroleomic investigations have guided sample preparation to faster, cleaner, and more reliable formats. For instance, solvent consumption has been drastically reduced when using miniaturized devices in routine applications. Furthermore, flow-modulation has enabled cost-effective analysis and powerful separations of gases, fuels, and crude oils. Hyphenation of GC × GC to conventional and high resolution mass spectrometry has enabled the detection and identification of hundreds of compounds in a single analysis. Pixel-based methods enabled efficient handling of big data generated by GC × GC in forensic and geochemical investigations. This review has highlighted an ever-growing demand for modern and powerful analytical methods for oil & gas industry. Here, we described the most recent advances to sample preparation, GC × GC instrumentation, and multivariate data analysis in petroleum industry, including microextractions, high temperature GC × GC, and pixel-based data analysis.